


Missing Pieces

by LiraelClayr007



Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo! [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: Angst with a Happy Ending, Childhood Memories, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Feels, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-29
Updated: 2020-06-29
Packaged: 2021-03-03 20:34:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,942
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24971632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LiraelClayr007/pseuds/LiraelClayr007
Summary: When Clint becomes down and distracted, Bucky takes it upon himself to discover what's bothering his boyfriend. Even though Clint won't talk about it. Even though Bucky has too many missing pieces.In which Bucky goes to great lengths to make Clint smile.
Relationships: James "Bucky" Barnes/Clint Barton
Series: Bucky Barnes Bingo! [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1807465
Comments: 14
Kudos: 80
Collections: Bucky Barnes Bingo 2020





	Missing Pieces

**Author's Note:**

> for Bucky Barnes Bingo!
> 
> U1 - galaxy

“He’s on the roof again, isn’t he.”

Natasha nods, eyes flicking almost imperceptibly to the ceiling. Bucky shoves his hands into his pockets, his face drawn down in a scowl.

“He still not talking about it?” she asks.

He glares, she quirks an eyebrow. He _almost_ laughs; they rarely have to resort to words to communicate.

Bucky walks back through the doors, heading up to the roof.

“He’s sad,” Natasha says with a sigh. “He just doesn’t know how to show it.” Then, softer, “Please find a way to help him. This doesn’t seem to be a _take him to the gym until he punches it out_ or _tease him until he screams at me_ kind of situation. I’m pretty sure it’s boyfriend territory.”

“I–” He stops, unsure how to go on. He knows it pains her to admit she can’t solve a problem on her own. “Thanks, Natalia.” He doesn't look back, but he can feel her downcast, almost-smile.

He finds Clint on one of his rooftop perches, the one that sticks out over the edge of nothingness and makes Bucky’s stomach do a little flip-flop to see Clint so easily sprawled there. His lithe, muscular body looks relaxed, like he could roll off any second, but Bucky knows he’s in perfect control. Bucky takes a moment to just look at him: straw colored hair turned silver in glow of the rooftop lights, head leaned back so he can stare at the cloud-streaked sky, a band-aid on the back of his hand. His hand… The rest of him looks relaxed, but the hand Bucky can see is balled into a fist.

Clint holds his tension in his hands.

Bucky makes sure his steps are loud enough that Clint isn’t startled when he says, “Hey doll.”

Waiting until Bucky’s standing almost behind him, Clint swings his body around so he’s straddling the perch, his feet hanging down in the air, arms folded on the top of the metal post that had been his backrest, chin resting lightly on his crossed wrists.

“Heya sweetheart.” The easy smile is missing, but there’s a softening around the eyes.

Bucky eases up close, kissing Clint’s forehead and taking a moment to breathe in the scent of his hair. “Nice night,” he murmurs. “Spy anything interestin’?”

Bucky feels the tension radiating from Clint. “Nothing to see.” His voice has a bitter edge. Waving a hand at the sky, he adds, “There’s nothing but clouds. Not even those, really.”

The sky above them is a hazy muddle of black and grey, with some of the grey being a little brighter and streakier and cloudier. Clint’s right, an airplane could fly directly overhead and they wouldn’t see it.

“Guess not,” he says. “Still, it _is_ a nice night. Almost warm, for September. You mind if I sit up here with you for a while?”

Clint shrugs, then turns back to face the city and the sky again. “Be my guest. It’s Stark’s rooftop anyway.”

It feels like a wall dropped down between them, but if Clint says he can stay, Bucky’s staying.

They don’t talk at all, just sit in silence. It’s awkward at first–not because they’re uncomfortable with each other anymore, but because they both know Clint’s hiding something. Clint’s giving off angry-embarrassed-melancholy vibes that practically chime in the air around him, and Bucky’s projecting “caring boyfriend” as hard as he can. But after twenty minutes or so they both figure out how to calm down and just… _be._ When Bucky steals glances he notices that while Clint’s hand is still clenching and unchencing, worrying at something, his jaw is relaxed again.

He notices other things too. Clint’s breathing is easy, but every once in a while there’s a slight hitch, as if his breath catches on a stray thought. Whenever there’s a particularly strong gust of wind, he squints at the sky, as if it might reveal something previously unknown. And although his bow and quiver are in easy reach, they’re propped up on the roof behind him, not actually on his person. So whatever’s eating at him, it’s not an outside threat.

Not the kind you can shoot with an arrow, anyway.

“I think I’m gonna head down to bed,” Bucky says, feeling his knees pop as he gets to his feet. He may be a supersoldier, but his body still reacts to being in a semi-uncomfortable position on a hard rooftop for several hours. Not that he hasn’t done it before, in far less pleasurable situations than this. He gives his head a tiny shake, a physical reminder that he’s not the Winter Soldier anymore. He looks at Clint. “You comin’ anytime soon?”

Clint swallows, looks down at his hands, then turns his face away. “I, ah, was thinking I’d maybe sleep up here tonight. The last few nights our bedroom, our floor, the whole Tower, really...it’s all been feeling a bit…” He sighs, then finally turns to look at Bucky. “It all just feels too _small_.”

_Small?_

Keeping his voice as even as possible, Bucky says, “Clint, at least fifty percent of the time you spend in the Tower is spent crawling through the _vents_.”

Clint looks back at the sky. “And yet.”

Bucky presses his lips together, holding back the urge to shout, “What is wrong?” at the top of his voice. After a beat he says, “I’ll go get you some blankets, then. Or,” he adds, inspiration striking, “I could send Natalia?”

“Got everything I need.” Clint gestures vaguely over his shoulder, and Bucky sees a muddle of darker darkness he’d missed before among the other shadows on the roof. There’s a cot and a sleeping bag and a pillow, even a thermos Bucky’s sure is full of coffee.

“Say, were you a Boy Scout?” Bucky teases.

“Just because I wasn’t a Scout doesn’t mean I can’t be prepared.” There’s an almost hurt tone to Clint’s voice, hurt and maybe a little reproachful.

Bucky doesn’t know what to say, so he just lets the silence stretch for a few more minutes. Then he puts his hands on Clint’s shoulders and kisses the top of his head. “Night, doll,” he murmurs into Clint’s hair.

_Our bed won’t be the same without you,_ he wants to say.

_Pretty sure I won’t sleep tonight, thinkin’ about you up here in the cold,_ he thinks.

_Do you know I hold onto a pillow when you’re not around to hold at night?_ he doesn’t ask.

Instead of saying anything at all, he takes one more breath, waits one more moment, then turns and walks away.

Bucky doesn’t get much sleep. He thoroughly examines their darkened ceiling, the shadows on the walls, the thoughts bombarding the inside of his skull. He’s trying to put together a puzzle with too many missing pieces. There’s a sick feeling in his stomach at the image; it’s too much like a look back at his own past. There are too many things he still doesn’t remember, even after all this time.

He dozes off a little after three am, sleeps for about an hour. He’s not restored when he wakes, just cranky and tired because the bed is–of course–empty, and all he can think is that Clint must be cold without his own personal supersoldier to warm him up. After a few minutes of attempting to kick the blankets and pillows into submission he gives up and stomps to the bathroom to shower; Tony won’t be happy if he breaks another of their beds, even if he breaks this one on his own.

Although he wants to take breakfast to Clint on the roof, sense wins and Bucky waits in the kitchen. He knows Clint will be down fairly early; that thermos might last a person with an average coffee habit a whole cold night, but Clint’s coffee addiction is far from average.

Bleary-eyed from less than stellar sleep and rosy cheeked from wind, Clint stumbles into the common floor at 5:27. Bucky’s waiting with a mug of coffee, hand outstretched.

As expected, Clint doesn’t speak. His grabby hands speak for him.

“Mornin’ doll,” Bucky says with a grin. As Clint slumps onto the stool Bucky flips pancakes and bacon onto a plate and slides it in front of Clint, along with the butter and maple syrup. “Thought you might be needin’ a little pick-me-up.”

“You gonna pick me up?” Clint says with a sly, sleepy wink. He punctuates the wink with a jaw-cracking yawn.

Bucky laughs, shaking his head. “Even exhausted and half frozen you can’t help a good innuendo, can you.”

“Never,” Clint says, digging into his breakfast; with less alacrity than normal, maybe, but at least he’s eating. After a few bites he looks up at Bucky, leaning against the counter a few feet away, and smiles. A real smile. “Thanks. This hits the spot.”

“You’re just sayin’ that cause I made coffee,” Bucky drawls.

“I’m able to speak because you made coffee. I’m saying thank you because you made bacon.”

It’s a nearly normal day in the Tower: the usual breakfast and light-hearted bickering, target practice on the range, working out in the gym, playing ridiculously competitive games of MarioKart in the afternoon. Clint is there but _not_ there; he participates, and even though his shooting is flawless as usual he’s clearly distracted, at least to Bucky’s trained eye. Clint’s not fully engaged in anything, and so much of Bucky’s attention is focused on Clint that when they’re sparring Sam lands a punch Bucky could have easily blocked. Everyone in the room collectively gasps a breath.

Almost everyone. Clint doesn’t even notice.

Later in the day, from the corner of his eye, Bucky spies Clint peeking down from one of the vents.

His mind keeps coming back to the puzzle with too many missing pieces. There’s no way to see what the picture is with a bit of the border and a few scattered center pieces. The vents are okay, but the Tower at night is too small? And how does any of that connect to Clint’s air of melancholy, his _distraction_? It’s bewildering. 

Clint sleeps on the roof again that night.

Bucky’s a little jittery with nerves when, two nights later, he joins Clint on the rooftop again. When he stands behind him, resting his hands on his shoulders, he feels Clint relax, minutely, at his touch. Just that tiny thing calms him, and when he speaks his words are even, without a hint of a tremble.

“Will you try something for me, doll?”

Clint swings around to face him in that easy, graceful way he has. Bucky’s seen it a hundred times, a thousand, but he’s still in awe. He moves like the world had been built as his playground, like gravity is something to be toyed with instead of taken seriously.

“Anything for you, sweetheart.” Clint’s smile is slight but true, so Bucky barrels onward.

“Come downstairs. You don’t have to stay,” he adds quickly, seeing the smile on Clint’s face ebb away. “I promise. I just want to show you something.”

Bucky can see Clint pulling bits of himself inward, building that protective shell that’s been coming up more and more the past week or so, but still he climbs onto the roof, snagging his bow with one hand and reaching his other out to find Bucky’s in the glow of the rooftop lights.

“Alright,” he says, trusting.

Squeezing Clint’s fingers, Bucky says, “Yeah. Alright.”

The lack of typical Clint chatter is glaring, somehow shouting in the empty, echoing stairwell. But neither of them hesitates. Bucky, for one, is too focused on getting Clint to their bedroom, keeping him tethered to the earth when his ever-increasing nerves threaten to carry him away. Clint is probably miles away, in another state if Bucky’s guess is correct. He’ll find out soon if he’s found the missing puzzle pieces.

In the doorway of their bedroom Clint says, “Huh. It’s clean.”

Bucky fights to resist and fails. “That’s what happens when you’re not here to throw everything _everywhere_ ,” he says, his voice dry. “Half of this couple knows how to put things away. Maybe you’ve figured out which half that is.”

Clint chuckles. “Aw, Buck, you wouldn’t want me any other way.”

Leading him to the bed, Bucky asks, “But isn’t it nice to be able to walk across the floor without tripping? Maybe we could use as many as ten fewer bandaids per year if you just put your dirty clothes in the hamper.”

Clint sits willingly enough, but when Bucky tries to pull him down so they’re laying side by side on their backs, Clint resists. He’s laughing, but there’s an edge to his words when he asks, “Was all this just about getting me to bed?”

“Doll, we’ve had sex on that roof more times than I can count.”

He feels Clint relax beside him. “Remember when Tony caught us under the quinjet? Ah, good times.”

Sitting up, Bucky rests a hand on Clint’s thigh, rubbing soothing circles. “Jesting aside. If you’re uncomfortable you can go, but…” He’s looking for the right words to say when he feels Clint’s hand on his. “It’s alright,” Clint says. “I trust you.”

It’s moments like these Bucky fought for–still fights for. Tiny bits of closeness, of another human being reassuring him he’s still human himself, still true, still worthy of love. He kisses Clint’s forehead–he rather desperately wants to do more but this particular bedroom visit is _not_ about sex and he doesn’t want to give either of them the wrong idea–and sprawls beside him, tangling their fingers together. “Ready, JARVIS?”

“Of course, Sergeant Barnes.”

“Wha–” Clint starts, but his question is answered almost before he can ask it when the room plunges into darkness.

“ _Oh_.”

Just one word and Bucky knows it’s going to be alright. Awe and wonder and no more walls between them.

“Stevie helped, but it was my idea. I just asked him ’cause he’s used to holding a paintbrush.”

Laughing, Clint squeezes Bucky’s hand and scoots closer on the bed. “How’d you do it?” His voice, soft, is lighter than it’s been in days.

“Glow in the dark paint.”

Clint elbows Bucky in the side. “I can see _that_. I mean…” He waves at the stars on the ceiling, the patterns and constellations mimicking the sky they can’t quite see through the light pollution of the city.

“JARVIS projected the, ah, _map_ , I guess you’d call it, onto the ceiling, and Tony rigged up some hover platforms for us to lay on while we painted. Just call me Michaelangelo,” Bucky deadpans.

Clint turns his head and presses a kiss into Bucky’s shoulder. “Thanks, Buck. I–” His breath hitches; he takes a minute, then starts over. “When I was a kid I used to climb out my window onto the roof, when things got to be...too much. The sky was so big, I could look at the stars and just...get lost. Forget about everything else in the vastness of the universe.” He chuckles, though it sounds a bit forced in Bucky’s ears. “Not that I was thinking like that back in those days. Mostly I was just thinking that I was alone on the roof, but I’d be _really_ alone if I could get to the stars.” After a shaky breath he adds, “Alone and _safe_.”

They look at the stars together for one breath, two breaths. Then Bucky says, “I’m sorry it had to be that way for you.”

“I’m not.” Before Bucky can object, Clint says, “Don’t get me wrong, there are times–many times, if I’m honest–I wish my childhood could have been brighter. Warmer. _Safer_. But all that crap is what made me who I am. Would I have ever picked up a bow if Barney and I hadn’t run away and joined the circus? Would I be an Avenger? Or would I be married with a dog and two kids and a white picket fence?”

Still staring up into the galaxy spread out above them, Bucky says, slow and soft, “Without my own hellish past I’d be an old man now. Or…” He doesn’t finish the thought, but they’re both thinking the word. _Dead_. A word they both think often enough, in their line of work, but try not to think about each other. Or say. Almost as one they move closer together, heads clunking almost audibly.

“Ow!” The sound Clint makes is half laugh, half bark of pain.

And then Bucky’s laughing; loud, full laughter that eats away all the tension that’s been building for days. Soon they’re clinging to each other, laughing so hard tears stream from their eyes. Laughing until they can’t even remember why, until they’re only laughing because it feels so good.

“So,” Bucky says when their laughter fades to the occasional gasp or giggle. “Is it okay to say I’m glad you walked down the path that led to me?”

With barely contained laughter in his voice, Clint says, “Only if I can say I’m glad you made it all the way to my present to be struck by Cupid’s arrow.”

Clint does not sleep on the roof that night...but he and Bucky _do_ sleep under the stars.

We are made of stardust–  
every atom in you, in me,  
once came from Sirius,  
or Alpha Centauri;  
they hung from the buckle  
of Orion’s belt or fell  
from Cassiopeia’s fingertips.

So together we make up  
a galaxy  
an ocean of stars  
with islands of planets

and where our lips meet,  
a supernova.

**Author's Note:**

> Piles and piles of thanks to my fellows on the BDBD, for encouraging me to write even though I thought I'd forgotten how. You know who you are.
> 
> Extra special thanks to Pherryt. For everything.


End file.
